Thoughts about UWash?

I didn't get a good sense of whether the residents were happy during my interview day there, and it doesn't seem like there's as much of an emphasis on formal teaching like there is with the East Coast schools. And the four or five hospital system sounds pretty chaotic too. However I like the flexibility with electives, and their residents seem to match pretty well for fellowship. Any thoughts?

maryshelley2006 said:

I didn't get a good sense of whether the residents were happy during my interview day there, and it doesn't seem like there's as much of an emphasis on formal teaching like there is with the East Coast schools. And the four or five hospital system sounds pretty chaotic too. However I like the flexibility with electives, and their residents seem to match pretty well for fellowship. Any thoughts?

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I didn't get a great feeling about the place, but that might have been because I was assigned to go to the VA. The tour was worthless, and the morning report was mediocre. However, I thought the residents were happy. My worry is that their isn't as much flexibility to the scheduling as one would like b/c it is such a big program. In the question and answer session, the residents say you rank your top three scheduling issues for each year (vacation, early elective/research time, etc.) and usually get the first one. Hmmm... I really wanted to like the program a whole lot, but it left me a little flat. The one thing that you can't argue with is fellowship placement. Hope this helps. Anyone else out there?

stat!! said:

Anyone else out there?

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Me! I would love to discuss UW. For the sake of my marriage, I will probably end up ranking it #1 (if they get off probation!) and I think it's a strong program. I have, however, seen a few things that bother me after doing a month-long rotation there and attending the interview day. Here are my thoughts:

Strengths:
-Amazing faculty who love to teach
-Diverse patient population
-Diverse hospital settings - university vs. VA vs. county vs. community
-Very smart, motivated residents who have fun working together and have fun outside of work
-Harborview - offers unusual combination of county pt population, great ancillary services and strong nursing support
-Hospitalist attendings on nearly all services, so you don't have to spend all day calling privates and you get more autonomy
-Large number of residents ensures that you will be able to find those with whom you can relate (i.e. less likely to find that you don't fit in with the group compared to smaller programs)
-Top-notch fellowship placement
-Strong subspecialty departments and research opportunities (esp in pulm/cc, id, heme/onc)
-Great international and rural health rotations
-Seattle is beautiful and fun, with all the amenities of a large city as well as the opportunity to get out and hike, bike, ski, etc

Weaknesses
-Not a very close-knit group of residents. Many have never even met one another, and you may work with someone once and never see them again
-Work schedules are chaotic - seem to be different on each rotation and are constantly undergoing change in an effort to meet work hours regulations
-On certain electives (e.g. renal at the univ hosp) residents are first call on evenings and weekends, possibly increasing your total # of call months
-PD is distant (though Dr. Wipf, assoc PD, is great), and administration seems less responsive to resident concerns than at other places
-No computerized order entry. Multiple separate computer systems are in use for tracking patient records, each with a different type of information - a pain for prerounding
-Only 3 weeks of vacation, and no guaranteed time off around the holidays as at some programs. Most residents told me they were either on call, pre-call, or post-call on Thanksgiving, Christmas, AND New Year's for at least the first 2 years (one person ended up on call for all 3 holidays all 3 years)
-No free lunch every day
-Parking costs
-Seattle is rainy and gray for much of the winter, traffic can be problematic, and cost of living is high (but not as bad as LA, NYC, etc.)

I think the laid-back vibe at UW can be a strength or weakness depending on your perspective. People at UW are very polite and will not tell you if you are doing something poorly. So, you are not going to receive as much outward pressure to perform as you might at some more hard-core places. This makes for a less stressful environment, which I like. However, this also means that the quality of the training you get depends on how self-motivated you are. You also won't see the formal type of AM report that you do on the east coast - the quality varies depending on which residents are a part of it. It's usually good, but I've seen some bad ones. UW tends to attract very intelligent and driven residents, so overall I think the training is solid. However, I don't know if the environment is for everyone (I don't even know if it's for me!).

As for residents being happy, I know quite a few (interns and R2's mostly) and they are very happy. I think people just need to know what they are getting into. There seems to be much less hand-holding than at many programs I've visited, and the program administration is not particularly responsive or progressive. They are not going to take care of all the little things for you. (probably d/t the bureaucracy and financial challenges of being a public institution, the size of the program, and the fact that the PD has been in place for a very long time.) However, if you are OK with this in exchange for getting great training at a top-notch academic institution, then you will likely be happy.

Would love to hear more input from others as well!

That was an awesome rundown, Bix, thanks so much! Since I can't do a 2nd look (I just don't have the extra $700 for a plane ticket right now, LOL), others' input is incredibly helpful. I really appreciate it. 😀

I felt the residents were unenthusiastic and a few were downright unhappy with the program. I did AM report at the U and it was dismal -- chief, four senior residents, and 10 applicants. No interns, no attendings. The case was interesting but the presentation was very haphazard. I got the impression that parking was a real problem.

I do feel that a very motivated person could make a superb education of the program given the wide variety of clinical experiences but it would take some work on their part. So I'm ranking it, but somewhat reluctantly and not high.

I'll admit that my impression was probably tempered by the layout of the interview day which was downright soporific. A lot of "time to spend with residents" which meant hearing "do you have any questions" way too many times and a lot of periods of uncomfortable silence.

Really loved Seattle (I like the gray rainy weather!) although I'm not sure I'm cool enough to live there. Excellent seafood and beer at the Pike Marketplace too. 🙂

Mumpu said:

Really loved Seattle (I like the gray rainy weather!) although I'm not sure I'm cool enough to live there.

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How funny! I am worried that I'm not cool enough to live in Denver, but I've lived in Seattle in the past and absolutely loved it. Ah, the irony. Anyway, thanks for the input on UW - very helpful.

Mumpu, I'm curious about when you were there? Because the AM report I saw was very sparsely attended as well. The residents told me that the poor attendance was unusual, and blamed it on the proximity to the holidays.

I got the same sense that there wasn't a lot of hand-holding at UWash. Residents find their own research projects rather than being assigned an advisor, or having formal guidance. One of my interviewers mentioned that when he tried to get residents to participate during his lectures, it was like pulling teeth, because no one wanted to talk. I'm not sure that I'm self-motivated enough to thrive at UWash, since I think I would have benefitted from more guidance and more formal teaching at my medical school (which is definitely best suited for the self-motivated). *sigh* However of all the programs I've visited, it has one of the top reputations (perhaps THE top reputation, other than Duke, which was far from a slam dunk for me), and I adored what I saw of Seattle. And I stayed with a resident who was incredibly cool (we had tons in common), but he didn't seem very close to his other classmates. He didn't talk to any of them while I was in his apartment for 2 days; all of his friends he spoke with or hung out with were people he had met before residency. He seemed happy, but then he had done his medical school abroad and didn't know anything about other residency programs or hospitals. Hmm. More food for thought.

UW is a top program. I think it's up there with UCSF + stanford.

wrx said:

I'm a 3rd year student and plan to go back to Seattle (parents live in Spokane) for IM. Though after looking at the current resident roster, they attract some freakin' smart students from big name schools! Going back seems like less of a reality given the caliber of applicants i'll be competing with.

Do any of you know what the average stats are? I'm thinking you need to honor medicine clerkship + step 1 > 240 + research??

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I know the feeling! I'm also trying to get back to Seattle for residency. I don't know the stats needed to match there, but they seem to grant interviews primarily to candidates with honors in medicine, solid Step 1 scores (probably >230 is good enough), and AOA. However, I have an HP in medicine, and they told me I was a very strong applicant for their more competitive traditional track. So it's doable without being a perfect applicant. Also, if you are really set on going there, you can apply for all 3 tracks (traditional, primary care, and boise primary care) to increase your chances of matching there. The training and fellowship placement is excellent from all three. Research is probably very helpful, though I don't think it's absolutely necessary. One thing they value very highly at UW is personal ties to the area, so definitely make that clear when you apply. It would be best to do an away rotation early in the fall so you can tell everyone you meet how much you want to be there, and also so you can get a strong letter from the attending you are working with. At least I think all of that is helpful - I guess I will let you know after March 16th!!

Hope that is somewhat helpful and encouraging. Best of luck with the rest of 3rd year.

-BBB

MS, I was there in early December. I was told that AM reports are not for interns.

Bix, LOL.

Don't need AoA to get a UW inteview.

It is very intersting to hear all the different opinions about 1 program. I am starting to think it really depends on what day you interview.

UW was 1 of my last interviews so I felt that I was in a good place to look at what impressed me most and compare it to other very impressive programs.

Conferences: The AM report and noon conference were the strongest I had seen. The AM report was filled by us 12 aplicants and more than that many residents. The chief resident wrote on the board and mediated discussion. There were also 2 attendings who added their 2 cents after residents had a chance to work through the questions. 1 of the attendings I interviewed with later and super nice. The report started with a case presentation by the chief, then the post-call team presented an interesting new admit. The residents appeared interested and had good participation. I felt like there was more energy that AM than at any other AM report.

The noon conference was a presentation by a specialist. Very interactive, lots of residents, also. The specialist was also a good speaker, which is not always the case.

Atmosphere: I had originally heard that for a west coast program, UW has an "east coast feel," but I would disagree with that. It was very inviting and friendly, both at the resident and faculty levels. I thought it was very similar to UCSF, but more laid-back, perhaps due to the Northwestern influence. The residents were very approachable and open. The panel at the end of the day was a great chance to ask even the more trivial questions, like "do they get free food?"

Location: Seattle seemed to be a very livable city, except for all the cloudiness, but at least it is big so that there is always something to do if you have the time, no matter the weather.

However, I agree that the lack of a computerized system is a disappointment, given the size of the program and hospital system. Also, they don't get free lunches often, but do get a small food stipend for call months. The program is huge, which can be a drawback in that you don't meet everyone right away or get to know everyone well. Then again, you are bound to find others whom you get along with wonderfully, and others whom you don't but then it's a large enough program that you hopefully won't have to work with them or hangout with them much.

Overall, UW seemed like the most laid-back, easy-going program of all the top tier programs. The residents do come from great schools and seem very motivated, but also very intersted in having lives outside of medicine. Also for me, it is great that it is strong in both fellowship placement and primary care training. I think that that shows that it's a well-rounded program.

can anyone clarify why the program was put on probation. It's quite rare for a IM program and i didn't see anything that would make it so either.

24+6 violation plus a lot of PC crapola about diversity blah blah. They handed out a copy of the letter and their responses during the interview day.

Jaded, interview experiences vary widely indeed. For example, I hated WashU to the point of not ranking. One of my friends loved it enough to make it one of their top choices. I loved Northwestern, one of my classmates who interviewed on the same day as me hated it.